At the present time, it requires four or five years to train air traffic controllers. The bulk of this time is spent on the job under the supervision of instructors. The length of time required for on-the-job training is primarily attributed to the limited number of available air traffic controllers at a particular site that can spend the proper amount of time to tutor students on a variety of different conditions. The controllers must teach students to be responsible for controlling all aircraft located in their radar sector, which defines a geographic region. Aircraft which fly from one sector to another must be properly transferred from the control of one controller to another. This is known as a handoff, and it is the responsibility of the separate controllers to resolve potential problems. Thus teamwork is an important aspect of the training.
Students must also be taught to monitor dozens of arriving and departing flights under numerous types of traffic and weather conditions. Trainees must learn to keep track of each aircraft's heading, altitude, and speed, while anticipating each aircraft's future flight path to sequence clearances intelligently and to avoid rule violations and collisions. In addition, there are numerous rules and procedures, such as site-specific letters of agreements and standard operating procedures, which must be learned to ensure traffic safety. Consideration must also be given to safe and timely departures and arrivals, fuel economy, and noise pollution.
In an attempt to reduce the on-the-job training time of air traffic controllers and improve the one-to-one student/instructor ratio, off-the-job training facilities have been established. These facilities are equipped with essentially the same radar equipment as that used by experienced controllers, which requires them to be linked to a main computer at a local airport or en route center. This equipment includes a radar screen which displays the geographical map of that particular site. This map typically consists of a film or slide which has been specially engraved for displaying geographic boundaries of the airport and runways, as well as natural boundaries such as mountains or bodies of water, on the radar screen. Navigational aids such as navigational markers and visual omnirange locations are also commonly displayed by the map. One of the problems facing these facilities is that this radar equipment is extremely expensive, so availability is often limited. There is also a temptation to use this training equipment for actual air traffic control when the equipment used by air traffic controllers breaks down. Another concern is that students may be trained on equipment that may soon become obsolete.
Off-the-job practice sessions at these facilities typically include simple air traffic scenarios generated on the students, radar display. These scenarios are stored in the main computer and usually involve complex programs which take into account the particular geographical features of, and site-specific rules and procedures for that airport or en route center. Access to these programs is often interrupted during times when air traffic is heavy, because students are directly competing with experienced controllers for computer time. Another limitation of these facilities is that they are limited to teaching the students rules for that particular site only. Reasons for limiting training to that particular site include the expense of obtaining a new map and extensive reprogramming of scenarios for that new site. Problems also occur when there are changes in navigational aids for a particular site. In other words, the present training facilities do not have the capacity for training students for different sites or for retraining controllers before they are transferred to new sites.
Typically, the traffic scenarios stored on the main computer allow students to practice giving clearances to aircraft projected on their radar displays by verbally communicating with another person acting as a pseudopilot. The pseudopilot in each case responds to the verbal commands or clearances of a student controller by entering the commands into the computer by way of a keyboard. The pseudopilot then verbally acknowledges the student controller in a manner that is similar to a pilot's response. In complex situations, two pseudopilots may be necessary to respond to the rapid verbal commands of a single student controller. During a different learning session, the roles of the student controllers and the pseudopilots are interchanged. In learning sessions without an instructor present, students are generally limited by their current knowledge of the numerous rules and procedures.